And presently, through every bruised and tired sense, as she worked and worked, the ‘Eternal Fountain of that Heavenly Beauty’ distilled His constant balm.  She worked on, soothed and happy.

In a few minutes there was a sound at the gate.  A child looked in—­black tumbled hair, dark eyes, a plain but most engaging countenance.

‘I’m tomin in,’ he announced, and without any more ado, came in.  Nelly held out a hand and kissed him.

‘You must be very good.’

‘I is good,’ said the child, radiantly.

Nelly spread a rug for him to lie on, and provided him with a piece of paper, some coloured chalks and a piece of mill board.  He turned over on his front and plunged into drawing—­

Silence—­till Nelly asked—­

‘What are you drawing, Tommy?’

‘Haggans and Hoons,’ said a dreamy voice, the voice of one absorbed.

‘I forget’—­said Nelly gravely—­’which are the good ones?’

‘The Hoons are good.  The Haggans are awfully wicked!’ said the child, slashing away at his drawing with bold vindictive strokes.

‘Are you drawing a Haggan, Tommy?’

‘Yes.’

He held up a monster, half griffin, half crocodile, for her to see, and she heartily admired it.

‘Where do the Haggans live, Tommy?’

‘In Jupe,’ said the child, again drawing busily.

‘You mean Jupiter?’

‘I don’t!’ said Tommy reproachfully, ’I said Jupe, and I mean Jupe.  Perhaps’—­he conceded, courteously—­’I may have got the idea from that other place.  But it’s quite different.  You do believe it’s quite different—­don’t you?’

‘Certainly,’ said Nelly.

’I’m glad of that—­because—­well, because I can’t be friends with people that say it isn’t different.  You do see that, don’t you?’

Nelly assured him she perfectly understood, and then Tommy rolled over on his back, and staring at the sky, began to talk in mysterious tones of ‘Jupe,’ and the beings that lived in it, Haggans, and Hoons, lions and bears, and white mice.  His voice grew dreamier and dreamier.  Nelly thought he was asleep, and she suddenly found herself looking at the little figure on the grass with a passionate hunger.  If such a living creature belonged to her—­to call her its very own—­to cling to her with its dear chubby hands!

She bent forward, her eyes wet, above the unconscious Tommy.  But a step on the road startled her, and raising her head she saw ’Old Father Time,’ with scythe on shoulder, leaning on the little gate which led from the strip of garden to the road, and looking at her with the expression which implied a sarcastic view of things in general, and especially of ‘gentlefolk.’  But he was favourably inclined to Mrs. Sarratt, and when Nelly invited him in, he obeyed her, and grounding his scythe, as though it had been a gun, he stood leaning upon it, indulgently listening while she congratulated him on a strange incident which, as she knew from Hester, had lately occurred to him.